CHAPTER XX--DAMASCUS--THE GARDEN CITY OF THE EAST.

_Dimitri and his hotel--Court-yards and fountain--How people live in Damascus--Parlors, bed-rooms and boudoirs--A bet and its decision--The “Doubter and his Donkey”--The Street called “Straight”--Bab-Shurky--Spots famous in history--Shaking hinds across a Street--Scene of St. Paul’s conversion--The Window of escape--Tombs of Mohammed’s Wives--The “Doubter” figuring on probabilities--An unexpected upset--Visiting the lepers’ hospital--A frightful spectacle--The Great Mosque--View from the Minaret--The Bazaars and Curiosity Shops--Making a trade--A case of Fraud._

THE hotel at Damascus is kept by a Greek named Dimitri, who has been familiar with Syria for a great many years, and was in his younger days a dragoman.

His house is spacious, and more comfortable than I had expected to find it, and in appearance is the most Oriental of all the hotels I have seen in the East. You enter by a low, narrow doorway, and passing a short vestibule find yourself in a marble paved court open to the sky, and possessing a fine fountain When I say a fine fountain, I mean that it is so from an Oriental point of view--i. e., there is a broad tank, with stone sides, where the water is kept constantly changing by means of a two inch supply-pipe, and an equally large waste pipe. To the right of the fountain there is a recess about twenty feet square, where are divans and chairs in abundance.

Beyond the fountain on the opposite side of the court is the parlor or saloon. It is entered by an ordinary door, and you find inside a marble floor as long as the room is wide,--about six feet {279}in width,--and having a fountain in the centre. The rest of the apartment on each side of the marble floor is elevated about two feet and has steps leading up to it.

The spaces thus elevated are richly carpeted and have divans on three sides. They have in Dimitri’s hotel a few chairs in front of the divans; but these are rather out of place, and are only kept there out of deference to the foreign patrons. The roof is high, and the highest part of it all is in the centre. We have reason to know about it, as we got into a discussion while waiting for dinner, and two of the party risked a bottle of champagne on the result.

One said the roof was thirty feet above the marble floor, and the other thought it was twenty-nine and a half. The nearest was to win, and Dimitri sent for a pole and ladders and we measured it. The result was twenty-nine feet ten and one-quarter inches, and I lost the wine.

I have been thus particular in describing the court, fountain, and saloon of Dimitri’s Hotel for the reason that it will answer for any well-to-do house in Damascus, with the exception of the chairs, which should not be introduced there.

“Take away the chairs,” said Dimitri, “and my house is Ori{280}ental, but with them here, it is not. The instant chairs are introduced the Oriental character is gone.”

I should have added that his court contains several orange and other tropical trees; on some of the former the oranges were ripening, and were plucked and offered to us.

The height of the roof of the saloon may seem considerable, but we were told that it is frequently ten or twelve feet more, and before leaving the city I saw some parlors which had I think forty feet of distance between floor and roof.

Next morning we took a guide and started out for the sights.

“The weather is fine to-day,” said the guide; “you had better take donkeys, and see what we have to see of the outside of the town. To-morrow it may rain, and we can then see the bazaars, mosques, and houses.”

We took his advice and donkeys, and started at once. He led us through crowded streets to the gates, or rather to one of the gates, and then we proceeded to make a circuit of Damascus.

Our starting point was Bab-Shurkey or the East Gate It is a picturesque piece of architecture somewhat dilapidated, but containing traces of its former glory. Here was once a magnificent Roman portal with a central and two side arches which were walled up more than eight hundred years ago. This gate is at the end of the “street called Straight,” by which St. Paul entered the city, and from the top of the gate one can look along the street until it is lost in a confusion of buildings. It is not straight as we use the word, but is enough so for Oriental notions.

In the Roman period, and down to the Mohammedan conquest, there was a wide avenue where this street now is; it was about a hundred feet wide and was divided by Corinthian columns into three parts corresponding to the three arches of the gate. They have been distinctly traced in several localities. As you look down there now you see a narrow lane with uneven rows of buildings on either side; the projecting windows almost touch each other, and in some localities they are less than a foot apart. Hand-shaking and osculation would be easy across the streets, and elopements and intrigues are facilitated by the proximity of opposite dwellings. {281}We went near the wall outside of the city, and were shown several of the local curiosities. We passed a projecting tower of early Saracenic masonry, and near it our attention was called to an old gateway, which has been walled up more than 700 years. This is the reputed scene of Paul’s escape from Damascus.

The window was shown until within the past twenty years, when some changes in the wall removed it.

In front of the gate we were shown the tomb of George, the porter who aided St. Paul in his escape, and was martyred in consequence. Our guide was a Christian Arab, and spoke of the place with great veneration, as do all the native Christians. Beyond this is the Christian cemetery, which was desecrated by the Moslems at the time of the massacre of 1860. Some of the tombs were opened and the bones were scattered about; afterward some of those wounded in the massacre were thrown alive into the pit. The scene of St. Paul’s conversion is located here.

Not far away is the foreign cemetery; among those buried there is the accomplished historian, H. T. Buckle.

The guide called our attention to the houses upon the wall of the city; it was from a house of this sort that Paul was let down in a basket, and one can readily see that it was easy for Rahab, who dwelt upon the town wall of Jericho, to let “down the spies” by a cord through the window. On several occasions in time of war, these houses have been removed, but they have speedily re-appeared on the return of peace.

The walls of the city were no doubt of some importance formerly, and are still a sufficient defense against Bedouin cavalry, but they would be of no consequence to-day. Modern artillery would make short work of them, and there are places where a battery of ordinary field guns could destroy them in a few hours.

The city has outgrown the walls in several localities, and it is said that a third of the inhabitants are extra-mural. The population of Damascus is estimated at about one hundred and fifty thousand. Twenty thousand of these are Christians and six thousand Jews. The remainder are Moslems, and many of them are of the most fanatical character. {282}We halt at the Mohammedan cemetery of Bab-es-Saghir, an area of undulating ground, covered with a forest of tombstones, and little whitewashed mounds of brick, in shape resembling a house roof.

These are the graves, and each has a head stone with an inscription in Arabic, and beside it, is a cavity for water, generally containing a green branch of myrtle. Had we been there on a Friday we should have seen crowds of Moslem women weeping over the graves of relatives or friends, and after the ceremony had ended they would have fallen to chatting pleasantly, as if their visit were not a matter of grief. We saw the tombs of three of Mohammed’s wives, and of Fatimah, his grand daugh{283}ter, and we were shown other graves, and tombs containing the remains of Moslem warriors, statesmen, and historians.

The “Doubter” did not believe that Mohammed’s wives were buried there, and refused to dismount and enter the cemetery. When we returned to the gate we found him prostrate in the dirt, and just rising with the help of the donkey drivers. It seemed that his beast resented the notion of standing patiently for a man to sit on him, and after making a remonstrance in donkey fashion, he ended by turning a somersault that unseated the “Doubter.” The latter jackass described a sort of cruciform parabola and at the end of his gyrations found himself sitting down lengthwise, and with his back uppermost. Several new constellations and solar systems were flying around his excited skull and his doubts as to the character of this planet were stronger than ever.

“I don’t believe,” said he, as soon as his mouth was cleared of the dust that encumbered it, “I don’t believe that there is anything around here worth seeing. We had better go back to the hotel and stay there.”

“Nonsense,” replied one of us, “Damascus is the most interesting city of the East, within our reach; one of the oldest cities and one that has undergone very little change in two thousand years.”

“I know better than that,” said the “Doubter,” “nobody believes this city is two thousand, or even one thousand years old.”

I came to his help just then and told him he was right; that the city was founded in 1811 by a colony of Arabs from New Jersey, and was never heard of by the civilized world until December, 1847, when it was discovered by an Englishman named Smith. Somehow my information did not please him, and he was sullen all the rest of the day.

Later on I found what it was to be dropped from a donkey. I was dismounting, and the beast evidently wanted me to be quick about it. Just as I leaned forward to swing my right leg over, the donkey dropped his head and shoulders and gave me a most beautiful fall. I went down among other donkeys and in the dust of the street, but I flatter myself that I did it gracefully. A dozen Arabs were standing around but not one of them smiled while all my companions let themselves out into laughter. I told {284}them it was not polite to laugh at the unfortunate, but that didn’t appear to check them.

We visited the house of Ananias, the High Priest, all the points connected with St. Paul’s stay in Damascus, and then we went to the Mosques.

Before doing this it was necessary to visit the American Consul or Vice Consul, and obtain a permit. The Consul is a native of the country, a polite, affable gentleman, speaking English quite well, and showing a desire to serve the citizens and the interests of the country he represents. He lives in a fine house of recent construction; his house was burned in the massacre of 1860, and he narrowly escaped assassination. He received us in the style of the Orient, with coffee and pipes, and made us welcome to Damascus. He sent at once for the desired permit and sent his janissary to accompany us in our visit to the mosque.

Before going to the mosque we went to the site of the house of Naaman, the leper; a leper-hospital now occupies the spot. And speaking of lepers, we afterwards went to the leper-hospital and saw half a dozen of the victims of this dreadful disease. Some were blind, some had the face, some the arms, and some the legs, much swollen, and the face and hands of one were covered with scales. Under the edges of these scales the flesh was raw and inflamed, and we were told that some of the patients in the hospital were masses of sores.

The Great Mosque occupies a quadrangle one hundred and sixty-three yards long by one hundred and eight wide. Part of this quadrangle is a court surrounded by cloisters resting on stone pillars; the rest of the space is occupied by the mosque, which is four hundred and thirty-one feet by one hundred and eight. We removed our boots and put on our slippers before entering the building. The interior is divided into three aisles by two ranges of Corinthian pillars, which support round arches. In the centre is a dome one hundred and twenty feet high by fifty feet in diameter, and standing on four massive pillars. The floor is of stone and covered with soft carpets, and here and there on the carpets, were the Moslems at their prayers. Our attention was particularly attracted by one devout old Jew, who wore a phylactery upon his forehead and who appeared to be utterly uncon{285}scious of what was going on around him. On the eastern side of the mosque there is an elaborately carved Keebbek, or shrine, and below it is a cave, in which the head of John the Baptist is said to be preserved in a casket of gold.

There are three minarets to the mosque; the most important is the minaret of Jesus, at the south-eastern angle, and two hundred and fifty feet high.

There is a Moslem tradition that when Jesus comes to judge the world, He will descend on this minaret, enter the mosque, and call before him men of every sect and nationality. We climbed to the top of one of the minarets, and obtained from it a fine view of the city.

Mosques, bazaars, houses, mud walls and flat roofs, remains of Roman and Saracenic columns, streets and court-yards, formed the scene before us. Further off were the gardens, the olive and orange groves of Damascus; the Abana sparkled in the sunlight {286}like a band or thread of silver; the barren hills beyond formed a sharp contrast to the fertile plain; and away in the distance we could distinguish a belt of desert. Another mosque, whose minaret is covered with blue encaustic tiles, attracted our attention, and we longed to visit it. To our disappointment we learned that admission was then impossible.

A visitor to Damascus should take advantage of the first clear afternoon, to proceed at a late hour to the Salahiyeh hills, so as to look upon the city at sunset. The road is pleasant and picturesque, and leads gently upward beyond a village that lies between the hill and the city. An hour’s ride brings one to a point where the whole plain is spread out like a map at the spectator’s feet.

Embowered in gardens and tinted by the lights that varied every moment, Damascus looked to us as much like an earthly paradise as anything in the Orient. Away to the east was the range of Anti-Lebanon; to the north was the plain, with a strip of desert, and to the south the plain stretched away and broke into the hills in the distance. We could trace out the shape of the city, and follow with the eye the direction of its principal streets; the tall minarets and bright domes of the mosques formed salient features of the landscapes, and altogether the scene was thoroughly Oriental. It was from this hill that Mohammed looked and pronounced Damascus the most beautiful city of the world, and promised the most dutiful of his attendants, that they should be appointed to dwell there.

Thus we looked upon the city which is doubtless the oldest in the world. More than three thousand years it has flourished; more than thirty centuries it has stood there a city--the beautiful city of the plain. Nations have appeared and vanished. Kingdoms and empires and republics have risen and fallen, but Damascus has stood unchanged. Thrones have crumbled, dynasties have come and gone. Statesmen and poets and scholars have lived their brief period of existence, brief and insignificant. In the centuries that have rolled over Damascus Saracen, Roman, Moslem, and Christian have besieged the city; twice it has been the center of empires, and many times it has been the seat of power that was felt far away. Though never formally {287}occupied by Christians, it was one of the early centers of Christianity, and for nearly three centuries this was the predominant religion. And later in its history the armies of the Mohammedan empire went forth from Damascus, spreading the religion of the Prophet to Spain on the one hand, and to Hindos-tan on the other. Damascus was then the seat of an empire the greatest on the globe, extending from the Himalayas to the Atlantic. Wealth was poured into her coffers, and she became the richest as well as the mightiest capital. Though she has declined she has not fallen, and presents to-day a picture of serene and well-deserved prosperity.

Damascus without the bazaars would be Hamlet without Hamlet. Here you see the Orient in its perfection. Instead of shops scattered through the city, as in the West, all trades, or rather all the persons in one trade, are brought together. The bazaars of Damascus have had a world-wide celebrity for centuries, and there are none in the East better than they. You can buy there anything you want, from a. slave to a cigarette, and from a sewing needle to a _parure_ of diamonds. You can wander for hours and days in the bazaars; in the slipper bazaar, the tobacco bazaar, the seed bazaar, the mercers’ bazaar, the tailors’ bazaar, the clog bazaar, the silversmiths’ bazaar, the spice bazaar, the book bazaar, the old clo’ bazaar, the iron bazaar, the pipe bazaar, and other bazaars to the number of a dozen or more.

There is a general similarity in the bazaars, so far as the externals are concerned; the shops are little pens, from four or six to ten feet square, where the merchant sits or squats on the floor, and the customer sits on the little bench in front. The front of the shop is entirely open during the day; it can be shut at night, but the locks by which it is held are of a very primitive and very flimsy pattern. If the owner wishes to go away in the day time he spreads a net in front during his absence, and this is his card to say he is “out.” The merchant does not press you to buy, and he generally seems not to care whether you buy or not.

In the slipper bazaar you pass shop after shop where Oriental slippers of all patterns and values are sold; in the tailors’ bazaar you find shop after shop where tailors are at work upon Oriental garments, and so you go on through one bazaar after another.

A few articles for sale, such as ear and nose drops, rings and brooches, generally contained in a locked show-case, a foot square, and the same in height; the shop-keepers exhibited their goods, but did not press them for sale; many of them stopped work to stare at us, while others stuck to their business with Oriental indifference. A small anvil, a few hammers, pliers and rollers, and a small fire of charcoal, kept in flame by a bellows of goat-skin comprise the whole outfit of a workman. The entire arrangement could be stowed in a good-sized hat.{288}Part of the street called Straight is occupied by bazaars, and there is a network of them on both sides of it.

In the silversmith’s bazaar each man occupies a space about six feet square, in a sort of large hall, with low roof and many supporting pillars; this space contains both work-room and salesroom.

{289}In the arms bazaar there are all sorts of odds and ends of cimetars, matchlocks, sabres, pistols, lances, and the like. The famous Damascus blades were offered to us, but they were not of that fine temper that permits you to tie one of them into a knot, and so we did not buy. An antiquarian would be at home in this bazaar, and find many things to suit his fancy.

We went to the silk bazaar, as one of our party wanted to buy some kerchiefs, and after looking around we went out of the bazaar into a Khan, or caravansary. This was a court, with a fountain in the center. A double story of little rooms opened into this court, and on the upper floor was a silk merchant we wished to find.

The bargaining was conducted _a l’Orient_. We had coffee and cigarettes, and then the silks were shown.

The merchant wanted twenty francs, the buyer would give six.

Neither could do better, but they slowly unbent so that at the end of half an hour the prices were fifteen selling and ten buying. Then we bade the merchant good-bye, and departed.

We returned in an hour, and then the negotiations went on; the seller stuck at thirteen, and the buyer at eleven and a half, and finally, after at least an hour of talk and the assurance of the merchant that the kerchiefs cost him more than that, a bargain was closed at twelve.

The _coup de grace_ was given when the buyer showed the money in bright Napoleons, and rattled them before the other’s eyes.

The silk merchant wanted to sell something more, and sent his partner or attendant to bring a piece of goods from another room. The piece came, the wrapping was removed, and behold! there appeared on the end of the roll a ticket with the name of a French factory at Lyons.

Much of the silk sold in Constantinople, Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, and Bagdad, as Oriental, is from French looms. I have been repeatedly told so by the merchants, and also by an agent of one of the houses especially devoted to Oriental fabrics. It requires an expert to distinguish the native silks from the French ones.

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